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<title>With Your Feathers Burnt to Ash by WishMoon (A_Wish_On_the_Moon)</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28078332">With Your Feathers Burnt to Ash</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Wish_On_the_Moon/pseuds/WishMoon'>WishMoon (A_Wish_On_the_Moon)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>SofA Lite Exchange 2020 Gifts [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fullmetal Alchemist (Anime 2003), Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood &amp; Manga</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Childhood Friends, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Gen, Horror, Promises, Second Chances, Soulmates, Time Travel, War</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 18:28:24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,188</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28078332</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Wish_On_the_Moon/pseuds/WishMoon</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>
There is a woman with eyes that can pierce through his soul, and a man with hands that can only burn (her) world into ruin. Theirs is a history buried in the desert sands, accumulating a legacy upon which hell’s path is paved. Still, they chase after a future they cannot have, and promise themselves this:
</p><p>
Become the serpent that consumes its own tail, and rise from the ashes a phoenix, set aflame.
</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Maes Hughes &amp; Roy Mustang, Riza Hawkeye &amp; Roy Mustang, Riza Hawkeye/Roy Mustang</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>SofA Lite Exchange 2020 Gifts [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2085768</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>SofA Lite</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>With Your Feathers Burnt to Ash</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/BubblySage/gifts">BubblySage</a>.</li>



        <li>In response to a prompt by
            <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/BubblySage/pseuds/BubblySage">BubblySage</a>  in the  <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/collections/sofa2020lite">sofa2020lite</a>
          collection.
        </li>
    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>
  <strong>Prompt:</strong>
</p><p>I chose two pairings but feel free to select either one, same for tags =) </p><p>I generally like soulmate/soulmark stories, childhood friends, friends to lovers trope, second chances are also a favorite. Angst is fine but I hope you can give them a happy ending =)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>⭑⁕⭑</p><p>.</p><p>Amidst the searing heat that roils around them in waves, Riza Hawkeye and Roy Mustang gaze deep into each other’s eyes. Flint on steel, and ice within the flames.</p><p>“Lieutenant.”</p><p>A nod. “Colonel.” </p><p>“Are you certain?” </p><p>The barrel of a gun sits, pointed, at his clothed chest. </p><p>“Always.” </p><p>“... Then, to the top, once more.”</p><p>.</p><p>They die with a bullet to his heart and smoke in her lungs, the taste of each other’s names on their tongues, and wake: to the desert haze.</p><p>(The only thing that stops the noose, this time, is this:<br/>
the sight — of hawk-hunter talons; the promise — of wild-gold eyes,<br/>
and the knowledge — of that beast they call… Truth.)</p><p>.</p><p>This is how it begins:</p><p>A world that toils through the cogs of war, as surely as it promises peace. A burning earth turned asunder, and a civilization fallen. The birth and death of nations, as monarchies rise and monarchies fall, and the might of science and taboo forge a path towards a future, revisited. </p><p>Theirs is a world steeped in the study of deconstruction, transmutation, reconstruction, again and again and again, seeking out more than it’s been given. A world that changes its history with the exchange of blows, and to the victor goes the spoils of war as they pen lies onto paper, and play a game of pretend.</p><p>A world that alters its very roots does not deserve soft marks upon its creatures’ hearts. A world that struggles to know itself does not deserve the promise of a future. </p><p>This kind of world is quite a terrible thing, when it comes down to it.</p><p>When this world is created, so, too, is the certainty of an end. Nothing was meant to last forever, and humanity walks its dying days. Upon their souls, a taint — the threads of fate that bind them to another will surely destroy them, in the fallout.</p><p>.</p><p>(In this world, one hopes never to meet their soulmate; it will not be their enemy that kills them, softly, in the end.)</p><p>.</p><p>How it wavers:</p><p>A boy meets a girl, meets a man, meets fate. Forgotten vows and Ishvallan eyes. The dog days of summer as blood paints tarmac, paints circles, paints ruin. Spun-straw gold catches candlelight amidst the cicada hum at night, as they pore over tomes, over balms, over homes, and wonder, <em> Do the puzzle pieces mesh? </em></p><p>They share quiet days of silence, as they pass each other by. Share burgundy-rum the color of her eyes, treacle tarts the Xingese bent of his hair, and bring bittersweet smiles above the ocean waves of ceaseless, suffocating quiet, as they wait for the other foot to drop.</p><p>A father becomes a mentor, becomes a master, becomes a monster. When they bury him in an open grave, neither are as sorrowful as they should be, nor as hateful as they could have been. A wound upon his wrist, and scars upon her back, and the whisper of an undoing in their hearts, when she begs:</p><p>
  <em> “Burn it away. All of it.” </em>
</p><p>.</p><p>(There are not many who can be trusted with the knowledge of destruction.)</p><p>((He does not yet know if he deserves the honor; will not, in the coming years, believe he should ever have held it, to begin with.))</p><p>.</p><p>How it ensnares:</p><p>Desert sands that haunt their waking dreams, and a secret split between lives that were not meant to cross. <em> I know something that you do not </em>, they seem to say with the silence of their breaths, as children are shot and widows are burned, and the undeserving, the arrogant, and the unjust swallow a nation, whole.</p><p><em> I know something that you do not </em> , she whispers into the sunsets, as she snipes down innocents for a cause she has never believed in. <em> I know something you do not </em>, he muffles into the back of his hands, where a transmutation circle burns heavy, burns monstrous, as he leans on death to survive.</p><p><em> I know something that you do not </em>, because it is not the place of a lowly soldier to question the command of those above him, but...</p><p>.</p><p>(The only way to prevent such horrors is to rise, high enough that the decisions you make hold weight far above the rest.)</p><p>.</p><p>How it grows:</p><p>Rainy days spent in the company of the past, and the ties that bind them together, still. Fire brands and desert sands, and the ink-scroll summer haze of afternoons spent so close, yet so far apart, that connect their memories, so. </p><p>Time spent between paperwork, amidst assignments and contracts and a team, prepared to do anything for their superior. Loyalty inspired, and loyalty gained, as a future is forged in the antebellum twilight of a military office, where mutiny sits vacant on his tongue.</p><p>Secrets dipped in the guilt of a thousand lives cast to ruin, and the legacy of an alchemist’s dying will that soaks their meetings with something more than friendship, something more than acquaintances. The truth of a trust forged from wariness and weariness. The truth of a companionship borne of the bloodshed that stains both their hands.</p><p>.</p><p><em> I know a secret you do not: </em> <em><br/>
</em> <em> That those whose souls were matched for this world won’t live long after they’ve met. </em></p><p>(We have always been destined for war.)</p><p>.</p><p>How it ends:</p><p>With the cross bored at birth for the ones they never knew, and the end of all things in a battle they could not have foreseen. Some things cannot be fixed, and some promises cannot be kept. It is not towards the deserving that victory is assured.</p><p>A team, lost to violence. Children, denied their due. A taboo, broken, as Truth filters through the blinds and threatens to tear them apart for their insolence, piece by piece by piece.</p><p>.</p><p>(it is not an easy thing, to put them back together)</p><p>((<em>Tell me, do the puzzle pieces mesh? </em>))</p><p>.</p><p>“Again,” Colonel Roy Mustang promises, as the blaze burns like a final rally around them both.</p><p>“Again,” Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye agrees, as Maes’ murderer flails and the Homunculi laugh, and the country of Amestris drowns in the shadows it casts. </p><p>A world trembles as it falls, but it is far too late to fear for something that was never built to last. </p><p>Nothing but the weight of a gun in her hands grounds her, still; soon, nothing will even be left to keep her crawling, keep her walking, into that far-off dawn. He knows this, as surely as she knows him.</p><p>.</p><p>(Such sorrowful sentimentality does not suit a weapon; their end has been long overdue.)</p><p>.</p><p>(Flames, that lick at skin and scar tissue,<br/>
until even the bones lay, black as soot, and crumble… into ash.)</p><p>.</p><p>
  <em> Humanity cannot so easily escape its mistakes.  </em>
</p><p>(A frozen heart, a broken vow.)</p><p>A promise, burnt to ash, as a serpent exhumes, <em>consumes</em>, its own tail.</p><p>.</p><p>.</p><p>A phoenix, arisen anew.</p><p>.</p><p>.</p><p>(“I will follow you into this hell, even if it is by my own hand.”)</p><p>((“... Then, I won’t sink so deep that you will have need to fulfill that oath.”))</p><p>.</p><p>.</p><p>
  <em>He always was terrible with following orders, even when they were his own.</em>
</p><p>.</p><p>.</p><p>⭑⁕⭑</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>There will be heartache. I apologize in advance. :D</p></blockquote></div></div>
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